Allegro
by Yotsubadancesintherain5
Summary: Bob's Burgers receives some customers that might not even be human. Somehow, it might as well happen.


**A/N: Originally posted on AO3 on May 16 2018**

**A beach town family where it's very musical and weird things happen. I think this'll be a good antidote after the last two, melancholy fics I've written.**

**A nebulous time frame here, basically the equivalent of making a hot pot and seeing what happens.**

At first it could be explained that these customers were cosplayers, stopping for something to eat before walking around for nine hours. But the decorative gems never got loose, and the body paint never flaked. Bob thought it was as strange as the time when Mr. Fischoeder stopped by – Bob protested that they already paid the month's rent even though the cash was soaked by various sodas – and yelled that Linda was a supportive burger wife.

At least then it could be explained that the landlord was yelling a thought before he forgot the quip.

This couldn't really be explained; five customers all at once, however self-deprecating that sounded Bob insisted it wasn't, and only one of them ate something. Or, it could be explained but it wasn't fair, really.

Right now it was only Bob in the restaurant, with two of the customers, the one with the decorative gem on her forehead and the other with two decorative gems in her palms. The other two disappeared somewhere, and the kid ran outside with his ukulele in hand when he finished eating. He was playing music with Gene and Linda was out there, too. Bob could hear her warbling.

He was preoccupied with making another burger of the day. The woman with the forehead gem requested it, saying to her friend, "Garnet, we should bring one back for Amethyst."

Bob was almost done with spreading the mayonnaise on the bun and drizzling the honey mustard over the burger (he'd sent Tina and Louise upstairs to get the extra tubs, and they were taking a long time) when the customer with the forehead gem read the board.

"Honey, honey, may; comes with honey mustard and mayonnaise." She made a face. "Disgusting."

"Don't knock it 'till you try it," Bob said. He tried to make it bright, like Linda, but it just sounded defensive. He came around to place the take-out bag on the counter.

The woman's cheeks puffed up and she looked strangely like a bird, but a firm voice said, "Pearl."

Bob watched as Garnet opened the bag and took out the burger. She took a single bite and said, "Good. Just as I Saw."

It was getting a little too weird, so Bob headed back to the kitchen and began cleaning up the grill.

Linda's original intention was to go upstairs and find out what was taking Tina and Louise so long with the honey mustard and mayonnaise tubs. Instead she was clapping along to a keyboard and ukulele mishmash, and cheered when it was over.

"You're so talented, my little Gene-bean," she gushed as she hugged her son. She added, "And your friend is good with that ukulele!"

"I'm taking Steven under my wing," Gene announced, and he played some of the deeper keys for dramatic effect.

The kid, Steven, smiled brightly. "It's nice to meet you, Mrs. Burgers."

"Linda," she said, the 'Lin' and the 'da' stretched out for flair. She tousled the boy's hair. She imagined that Bob would tell her not to do that but Linda ignored the imaginary scolding. Besides, he was still smiling, cute as a button. Besides, it was too precious that he called her Mrs. Burgers, like it was a real last name.

"So you two boys are gonna make a li'l band?" Linda asked.

"I was gonna ask Gene if he could help me out," Steven explained. "My friend Sadie, her band is making a song about a tragic ghost n' werewolf, and I wanted to work on the lyrics while we were on this trip."

"Just find a werewolf and get his input," Gene interjected.

"I could sing it for you, honey," Linda said. "Work out all the knots and all that."

"Okay! Great."

He took out a crumpled paper from his pocket and gave it to Linda. Soon, the air was filled with the admittedly cacophonic music detailing the tragic friendship between a ghost and werewolf.

Tina found the tub of honey mustard and mayonnaise under the sink. When they got the extra tubs her dad said he'd leave them under the sink and definitely wouldn't forget to get them once his back stopped aching. Honey mustard and mayonnaise under the sink was weird.

Tina would've reminded him, but she forgot too.

"Louise," she called over her shoulder as she carried the honey mustard tub into the hallway. Louise didn't answer so Tina assumed her sister was ignoring her. There was a sudden crash.

Tina waddled down the hallway and heard muttering as she got close to the source of the crash. It came from her room so she hefted up the tub, to use as a makeshift weapon even when it started to slip from her grasp.

She kicked at the door, making it creak open just a little, and caught sight of one of the customers.

"You can't be in here!" Tina saw that the customer was holding her bedside lamp, her nightstand knocked over. "And you can't steal my lamp!"

"I'm sorry!" The customer flailed her arms and had to dive to catch the lamp. Tina put down the tub, marched over, and took the lamp.

"I'm truly sorry," the intruder said, from the floor. "Steven has never taken me to one of these foreign food kindergartens and hou… houses, so I didn't know the decorum."

She got up and sat, cross-legged. "But that isn't an excuse."

Her tone was so forlorn that Tina softened what she hoped was a very hard gaze.

"Well, that's okay," she said. "If I was at a restaurant in, uh, Colorado, I wouldn't know what to do. But you can't go into houses!"

That made the customer lower her head even more and Tina tried to cover for it with, "What's your name? What were you in here for?"

"Peridot. I was here for data. One room was locked up, one was very smelly and the last was boring."

"I guess you could use my room as a… test subject," Tina conceded.

"Wonderful! It's the best out of all that I've seen."

"Oh, that's nice."

Peridot didn't respond because she got to work on investigating the room. As she walked around ("Human trapped in paper, need help setting him free. Little hor… horoscopes, pristine manes.") Tina picked up her nightstand and tidied up the drawers, placing the lamp on top of the stand.

"Oh, a _Camp Pining Hearts_ book!" Peridot suddenly explained.

Tina whirled around and saw her crack open the book. "Wait, that's my writing-"

"Is that so? Percy and Pierre as a couple? You have good taste," Peridot said. Her finger ran over the pencil markings and Tina hoped they wouldn't smudge. "You know, I never considered the… is it a human thing?"

"I don't know…"

"Ah, I got it," Peridot continued, "That it's obvious for them to be together! But it's not just because it's logical! They'd like each other's faces and butts!"

Peridot laughed and rose up the notebook. "You've opened my eyes!"

Even as strange as the circumstances, it felt pretty good to have someone laugh at her writing, but with happiness instead of malice, and Tina couldn't help but smile.

Louise only took out the tub of mayonnaise. She would've followed Tina, maybe, but there was something on their fire escape and that was infinitely more interesting.

Louise heard her name being called and ignored it as she opened up the window she heard a crash. It didn't sound like a honey mustard tub being broken and Tina didn't cry out so Louise ignored that, too.

Louise climbed out the window and leaned on the railing. The customer was perched on the left side.

"You came in with that bunch, huh?" Louise asked.

"Mmh," the woman said after a long silence.

Louise chuckled. "Oh, I see… You're trying to be distant and cool I getcha."

The woman turned her head to Louise. "It's more complicated than that."

Louise's smirk got wider. "Hey, how about something that's not complicated, huh?"

The customer tilted her head.

"A prank," Louise said. She traced out her plan on the palm of her hand. "Or, a warm-up prank. I need to see how good you are if we get caught. Okay, so let's get some metal junk, plant 'em on the beach and watch the beach combers come by with their metal detectors."

"Is that really a prank?"

"Like I said, it's a warm-up. It'll get better, I promise."

"Okay. Let's do it." The woman smiled.

Burying metal junk in the sand wasn't as bad as letting a personal army of crabs loose on the beach goers, but it was infinitely more interesting than carrying heavy tubs.

**A/N: **

**Supportive burger wife is an actual Bob's Burgers bootleg costume. There's another one called burger heiress.**


End file.
